Author Archive | ulysseslazarus

And then, there's that Predator drone joke.From Nick Pell at Black Sun Gazette:
Before I launch into an extended rant about the recent BP exploision, I wanted to highlight something that I thought was very important.
At a recent Washington Correspondents Association, President Barack Obama made an off-handed joke about using predator drones to keep the Jonas Brothers off his daughters. I know that this is one of those many times where I'm going to be told that I'm overreacting.
But let's think for a second about the record of Barack Obama. A man who ran for office on promises of "hope and change" quickly proved that he was the same type of establishment hack as the man who sat in the chair before him. This was proven, above all, by maintaining the status quo in the Department of Defense, despite being elected in large part due to a massive backlash against American involvement in two imperialist wars.
There are real victims of American attacks on Pakistan with predator drones, many of them children. Over a thousand civilians are known to have been killed by predator drone attacks since they began in Pakistan. Further, Barack Obama has ordered not just predator drone attacks that kill civilians in Afghanistan. He is also the first President in world history to order an assassination against an American citizen.

Recently, an article by Tim Wise explored the idea of a Tea Party movement dominated by radical black Americans. I’m not familiar enough to comment on the rest of Tim Wise’s body of work definitively having never read any of his books. However, the article in question presents a golden opportunity to discuss race in America–something that I have wanted to do for some time. While black and Hispanic Americans certainly endure a great deal of racism ranging from the benign (“You’re very articulate for a black man” or the awkward “Gimme some skin, bruvvah!” type comments from white people who aren’t as hip as they think they are) to the decidedly malicious (Rodney King, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, not to mention hundreds or thousands of black men we don’t know about), one simple truth is frequently ignored by commentators of both a white radical liberal or a Black Nationalist bent: Race obscures issues in America rather that clarifying them.… Read the rest

And that’s not just a cliche. I hate being right about this shit. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than feeling like I could cheerlead for the Democrats or some broad-based left formation. It would certainly make my life a lot easier and I might be able to declare a “victory” from time to time. The sad fact is that the Democrats and the left groups who apologize for them are not merely misguided souls on the same team as me. Nor are they merely deceivers who mislead the working class. Rather, they are active participants in attacking the working class, their living standards and working conditions.

Case in point: Not only will the health care bill leave four million people uninsured — to say nothing of the people paying too much for sub-standard coverage — it will fine them for the privilege.

Until recently, Nick Pell worked the night shift at an adult arcade, indulging a lifelong desire to be a fly on the wall of booth culture. His experiences with customers, the boss and the reality of life in the back room of an adult video store follow, via Just Out:

The electronic chirp sounds before I hear the door. Sitting up straight to look presentable, I see three guys walk in—young guys, apparently successful and, above all, handsome guys, well groomed and well dressed. I hand them each five ones. They gossip a bit in front of me, seemingly expecting me to join in. I don’t. I smile politely before putting all of my energy into ignoring the Missing Persons track and people of genders common and rare taking facials on plasma televisions all around me.

The computer’s alarm tells me to check the arcade. I do this every 15 minutes.

My loyal readers of Black Sun Gazette are none too surprised that I am adamantly opposed to the health care bill which was recently passed by Congress.
There's a lot of confusion surrounding the bill, not the least bit due to a massive campaign of disinformation and lies coming from The White House and its toadies in the corporate media.
I'm sort of amazed at how otherwise rational people are joining in the Democratic Party circle jerk that is accompany yet another massive transfer of wealth from working class people to corporate elites in this country.
The health care “reform” bill isn’t anything that deserves the name reform. The very word “reform” at least tacitly implies amelioration of social ills. For those who haven’t seen it, the fact sheet from Fire Dog Lake — a “progressive,” pro-Democratic Party blog — explains a lot about what is wrong with the bill. It doesn’t protect or aid the people it purports to and requires you to pay a large part of your income to, not a tax pool, but private companies...

It is worth continuing to explore the role of the International Socialist Organization and its political line expressed in Socialist Worker. As the class conflict becomes more two-sided, groups such as the International Socialist Organization will—regardless of the intentions of individual members—play a crucial role in protecting the existing system.

When one sees the ways in which the International Socialist Organization (and other groups like them such as Socialist Action and the Workers’ International League) play left defending attorneys of the trade union bureaucracy and middle class reform organizations (who play a crucial role in defending the Democrats who push many of the same policies as the Republicans) you can see a straight line drawn from the fake left to George W. Bush.

Things have been rather hectic around Black Sun Gazette Central lately, so forgive my lack of regular communication. I've got a few articles brewing that I'm sure my loyal readership is sure to enjoy.
However, I wanted to take a moment to go back to the subject of the International Socialist Organization and their website, SocialistWorker.org.
One of the most common arguments by ISO members is that the tendency with which I am in solidarity "does nothing." I'd like to take some time to seriously examine this claim, in a more reasoned and less emotional way than my prior screed on the ISO.

Tarzan is the creation of pulp fiction superstar Edgar Rice Burroughs and the prefect blend of two archetypes the feral child and the wild man. His name means “Skin Boy” and he is the son of English aristocrats who were marooned in the jungle after a mutiny at sea. Tarzan’s mother dies from an illness and his father is killed by an ape.

The orphan seems doomed until adopted by Kala, another ape, and taught the ways of the jungle. When he matures he discovers he is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke and returns to England to claim his title only to reject his inheritance and return to his true home in the wilderness.

He joined the comic book world in 1931, having series by both DC and Marvel, and even become a manga star in Japan (not to mention his appearance in Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

You may know Klint Finley as the editor of Technoccult or the co-founder of EsoZone. You might not know that Klint has also been a noise artist since before you ever heard of him.

His debut full-length album RETURN TO THE WASTELAND, a collection of dark ambient soundscapes and simultateously soothing and haunting drones, may conjure up vague memories or invoke a sense of deja vu in listeners as it takes them on a journey through mental spaces most people would rather forget.

I am fully aware that much of what I write here can easily be categorized as “conspiracy theory.” However, I would like to take some time to differentiate what it is I do here from what you might read on a more obviously “conspiracy” oriented website.

For the record, and for anyone who is confused, I do not consider myself a “conspiracy theorist,” nor do I think that Marxism is some kind of “conspiracy theory of the left.”

Rather, I consider Marxism to be to the social sciences what Darwinism is to the evolutionary biology. Specifically, I consider it a scientific method of analyzing history and current events, particularly in its historical materialist form. Conspiracy theory, conversely, is an anti-scientific mish-mash that seems to have more to do with the neuroses of a defeated middle class than a working class on the move against the bosses.… Read the rest